The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-01-31


He kept up this refrain business for nearly
tan centuries, whie MethuseIah continued
to stand out amid thu general wreck of men
and nations
Even the young, strong mower going
forth with his mower for to NOW spareth
the tall and diGnifiad drab hornets nest and
pasSeth by on the outer side, SO Time, With
his Waterbury hour glass and his over
worked hay knife over his shoulder and
his long Mormon whiskers and his high,
sleek dome of thought with its gray lam
brequin of hair around the base of it,
moved all around Methuseah and then
passed on.
Methuselah decorated the graves Of those
who persisted in a dozen different wars. He
did not enlist himself, Tor over 900 years of
his life he was exempt He would go to the
eulistiug place and off, his services, and
the officer would tell him to go home and
encourage his grandchildren to 60 Then
MetLuselah would sit around Noah's front
steps, and smoke and criticise the conduct
of the war, also the conduct of the enemy.
1t it said of Methuseiah that he never was
the same man after his son Lamech died
He was greatly attached to Lamech. and
when he woke up one night to find his son
purple in the face with membraneous Group,
lie could hardly realize that he might lose
him. The idea of losing a 10y who had Just
rounded the glorious morn of his 7T7th year,
had never occurred to him. But death
loses a shining mark. and he garnered little
Lammie and left MethuseIah TO moan and
mourn on for a couple more centuries with
out him.
Methuse'ah finally got SO that he couldn't
sleep any after o clock in the morning
and he didn't see how any one else could
The older he got, and the less valuable his
time became, the earlier he would rise, so
that he could get an early start. As the
centuries filed slowly by, and Methuselah
got where all h had to do was to shuttle
into his loose-fi ting Clothes, and rest his
gums on the top of a large sleek headed cane
and mutter up the chimney, and then groan
and extricate himself from his clothes again
and retire. He rose earlier and earlier in
the morning, and muttered more and more
about the young folks sleeping away the
best part of the day, and said he had no
doubt but that sleeping and snoring till
breakfast time helped to carry off Lam.
But one day old Father Time came along
with new scythe, and he draw the whet-
stone across It few times, and rolled the
sleeves of his red flannel undergarment I'D
over his warty elbows, and Mr. Methuse-
iah passed on to that undiscovered country
with a ripe experience and a long, c can
record
We can almost fancy how the physicians
who had disagreed about lis case ali the way
through came and insisted on a post morton
examination to prove VIII en- was right and
what was really the matter with him We
can imagine how people went by shaking
their heads and regretting that Methuselah
should have tempered with tobacco when he
knew that it affected his heart.
But he is gone. He lived to see his own
promissOry notes rise, flourish, acquire inter-
est, zine away at last, and finally outlaw.
He acquired large farm in the very heart |
of the county seat, and refused to move it or |
plot it and cali it Meth uselah's addition He |
came out in spring regularly for 900 wears |
after he got too old to work out his poll tax |
on the road, and put in his time telling the
rising generation how to make a good road
Meantime other old people, who we're almost
100 ears of age, moved away and went west
where they would attract attention and
command respect. There was actually no
pleasure an getting cd around where Metbu
selah was and being ordered about and
scolded and kept in the back ground by him.
So when at last he died, ople sighed and
said: "Well, it was better for him to die be-
fore he got childish 1t was best that he
should die at a time when he knew it all
We can't help thinking what an ACQUISITION
will be on the ever green shore
" hen he gets there. with all his ripe ex-
experience and his habits of early rising"
And the mex morning after the funeral
Methuselah's family did not get out of bed
i'll nearly o'clock.-Bill Nye, in Boston
Globe